This Oscar Season Don’t Forget About ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’

While “Wicked: For Good” has understandably taken up the lion’s share of attention in the Oscar race, there’s another movie musical adapted from a Broadway show that has been largely overlooked. Bill Condon, screenwriter of “Chicago” and director of “Dreamgirls” and “Beauty and the Beast” returns to the genre with “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

This is one of several adaptations of the 1976 Manuel Puig novel. Here, Condon is adapting the Tony Award-winning 1992 stage musical with music by his “Chicago” cohorts John Kander and Fred Ebb. While certain aspects differ in each adaptation, the main story is set during a military dictatorship and focuses on two Argentine prisoners — gay window dresser Luis and political dissident Valentin. To pass the time and keep a sense of humanity, Luis recounts the story of his favorite movie, “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

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Condon — an Oscar winner for his original screenplay for “Gods and Monsters” — is fearless in his adaptation, eliminating half of the musical’s songs. The stage version maintains consistency between the prison and the film worlds, both featuring songs. For the film, Condon eliminates the singing in the prison scenes and paints it in stark contrast to the Golden Age Hollywood era seen in the scenes set within the film. It pays off; the gut-wrenching moments in the stark jail cell always felt incongruous with song and dance. 

Another bold choice was to have his lead actors play not only the prisoners, but characters in the movie-within-the-movie. This allows his actors to show incredible range in wildly disparate roles. As Luis, Tonatiuh is stunning — giving vulnerability and complexity to the dreamer. But as his film counterpart, Kendall Nesbitt, he is all slick confidence and charm. It’s intended as a compliment to say many people are initially unsure if it’s the same actor. He more than holds his own with an excellent Diego Luna as Valentin and Armando, the leading man of “Spider Woman.”

Also pulling double duty within the “Spider Woman” film is Jennifer Lopez, landing a role perfectly fitting of her talents. Part of the problem with Lopez is that she makes it all look easy — singing, dancing, being a star. But there are few actors who could pull off the balancing act she does here. Bear with me as I try to explain the “Inception”-like level of difficulty in action. Lopez plays Aurora, the movie’s lovelorn heroine, being played by an actor named Ingrid Luna, who was trying to hide her heritage during the era in which the film was made. Luna is a product of the Hollywood machine, all crisp diction that, along with a blonde hairdo, is intended to mask her ethnicity. She also appears as the movie’s villain, the titular Spider Woman; that gives Lopez an opportunity to have a blast as she goes full-blown vamp. 

“Spider Woman” premiered to a muted reception at Sundance, where it was probably a bad fit. The candy-colored musical numbers stood out in the wrong way and, frankly, it felt like the knives were out for Lopez. Released in theaters in October, it quickly faded. But sometimes there are movies that you keep recommending to people and ultimately, they thank you for it. Over the last few weeks, I’ve received so many messages from people who have caught up with the movie and apologized for overlooking it. Hopefully, it’s not too late for voters.